We’ve changed our name. Dao By Design is now Nocean

I’m proud and a bit giddy to announce that Dao By Design is now Nocean. New look, same great taste!

Eight years ago, when I first started Dao By Design, I wanted a name that contained a dash of the business purpose, a dollop of my personal ideology and a smidgen of the business’ roots in China.

As the business grew, and its client list expanded to all points of the globe, the name became increasingly untethered from delivering this message. And what’s a business name if not a message?

Nearly two years ago, I began tossing around the idea of a change, pinned loosely to a move out of China and back to Canada that I knew was an eventuality for myself and the business.

So, why Nocean?

After giving some thought to a new name, and tossing out lists of rejects, I landed on “Nocean” as a homophone and portmanteau that I imagined meaning a large body of concepts and ideas. I liked it right away. It hit the conceptual notes I was looking for, was unique, memorable, not so odd as to be complicated, and it was much shorter than the 3-worded ‘Dao By Design’.

It also avoids being overly descriptive. When Dao By Design began, it was a multi-purpose web and print graphic design service. Over the years, I’ve moved away from print to focus solely on the digital domain. However, the word “design” really only directly describes a small portion of what Nocean now does; which includes web development, site and content strategy, search engine optimization, site performance auditing, campaign management, and much more. I was eager to have an identity umbrella that didn’t pigeonhole the business, but rather offered it the breadth to expand as needed.

And so there it sat. For two years.

The Big Move

Then this past June, that event which seemed on the horizon for so long finally arrived. After more than a decade living as an expatriate in Asia, I packed up my things and my China-born family, and returned home to Canada.

Leaving China and coming back to Canada is a new start in a lot of ways, the complexities of which probably belong in a conversation over drinks, not in a post about this name change. It also offered the perfect opportunity to make the switch to the new name and new identity.

And thus, here we are. The same level of quality, service, and economical efficiency that Dao By Design has always made a priority — now known as Nocean.

So, please have a poke around the new site, and expect to hear more from me in this space as I get back into the writing seat and use this platform to share my thoughts and advice on web design, development and what it takes to make and maintain an effective web presence.